Share This Story!

Obama wooed Snowe on health care — unsuccessfully

Who says President Obama doesn't like to schmooze lawma WASHINGTON -- Former Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-Maine) new book is a paean to the need for civility in government, with entire sections focused to rules

Former senator Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, says in a new book that Obama lobbied her aggressively on the health care bill, saying she could be a political "Joan of Arc" if she bucked the Republican leadership and supported the plan.

It didn't work: Snowe, like other Republicans, wound up voting against the Obama health care plan he signed into law in 2010.

In her memoir Fighting for Common Ground, Snowe writes that Obama contacted her after she voted in committee to move the bill to the Senate floor:

"The President also called me after the conclusion of the markup.

"He began by telling me, 'A great statesperson once said, "When history calls, history calls,'' ' and said I could make history by supporting health care reform when it's considered on the Senate floor.

" 'You could be a modern day Joan of Arc,' he offered. I laughed and replied, 'Yes, but she was burned at the stake!' I added, 'I don't mind taking the heat, but I have to believe it's the right policy for America.'

"The President responded, 'Don't worry, I'll be there with a fire hose!' "

Obama's congressional lobbying skills — and even his desire to do it — have come under fire in recent days, especially after a failed gun-control vote in the Senate last week.

"The private schmoozing didn't produce the desired results. Snowe ended up voting against the bill when it came before the full Senate. She argues in her book that she did so because Democratic leadership wouldn't make the legislative alterations that she wanted.

"The fault, she said, did not lie with the president, who had expressed openness to those alterations and proved attentive throughout the process.

"Indeed, Snowe writes that Obama went out of his way to assuage her concerns and win her vote: 'In the course of the health care debate, I met with the President at least eight times in addition to more than a dozen phone calls. He had made this rigorous outreach effort because he was seeking a bipartisan partner who he recognized cared about the issue as well.'"

Snowe opted not to seek re-election in 2012, in part because of rising partisanship within the Senate.